“Wait, little angel,” he said, breathing heavily. “Wait, wait. We can’t do this now.”
“Take me home,” she murmured, her forehead against his. “Fly me home. Apparently mates fly their women home. Fly methere and make love to me, Tristan. We both want it. I want it. I want you inside of me. I tasted you, now I want to feel you.”
“Oh, God,” he groaned, needing to push her farther away to get his bearings but not wanting her to take it as a rejection.
It was the last thought that sobered him.
“We need to go,” he said, rubbing her outer arms. “I’ll fly you home, but you need sleep.”
“I’m good. I’m okay.” She gave him a one-eyed thumbs up. “She has drunk two or three drinks to my one, did you know that?” She lifted her brows before attempting to turn and point at Niamh. “Andhe”—her finger vaguely waved in Phil’s direction— “kept pace with her no problem. They don’t even seem drunk. How is that possible?”
“It is not.” Jasper took two wobbly steps closer, his hands on his hips and his hips trying to slide out of line with the rest of his body. “It isnotpossible. That is the synopsis.”
“Synopsis?” Ulric asked from behind him, leaning heavily against the wall between two tables. He held a half empty drink against his chest, and there was a wet stain below it. “That is not the right word, dummy. How about…sum-der-ay. Wait, no.”
“Go home, Larry, you’re drunk,” Aurora said from a table. She wheezed out laughter and bent over.
Fred sat on the other side of Aurora with her computer open and a coffee cup to the side. Without looking up, she reached forward and moved Aurora’s mostly empty drink away, so Aurora didn’t hit it with her face. Fred was apparently working while playing babysitter. She clearly knew better than to drink with Niamh and Phil.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Tristan tried again, “I will fly you back to the hotel and tuck you into your bed, okay?”
“Yourbed,” she stated.
He gritted his teeth. He wanted nothing more in the world, and maybe he would, but he wouldn’t share that bed with her. He couldn’t. He didn’t trust himself to keep his hands to himself.
“Sure,” he said noncommittally. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Her hazy eyes met his and stuck, vulnerability shining within them. “I have a lot of darkness inside of me, Tristan. I have done so many things I’m not proud of. That I had no choice in. But…to protect Sebastian, and Jala, I would do it again.”
Jala was Sebastian’s sister, Tristan remembered. She’d died years ago.
A tear slipped out of her eye. “I killed their uncle. Did I ever tell you that? I don’t really tell people. He’d locked me in the closet again. He used to do that all the time when we were bad, which he thought was always. I’d get locked in the closet because I wasn’t a blood relation and he didn’t want to explain to my drug addled, dead-beat parents what had happened to me. He’d lock me in the closet, and he’d…” More tears fell.
“It’s okay, we can?—“
“He’d beat them bloody. I had to take Jala to the emergency room once. I used all my babysitting money to get a taxi. I had to leave Sebastian at home because I couldn’t carry them both and Sebastian wasn’t as badly off. We were just kids. I took Jala in and made up an excuse. She got jumped, I said. Because if they knew it was their uncle, Jala and Sabby would go into the system. They’d be separated and lose track of each other. TheyinsistedI never tell. And so, I didn’t. I just patched them up as best I could. But then one time, he locked me in the closet and it didn’t latch all the way. I got out before the panic set in, and I saw him. He had a hammer. I knew this time,thistime, he’d kill them. I justknewit. And so I went to the kitchen, and I got a knife…and I got to him before he got to them.”
More tears slipped down. Jasper lost the fight to keep his body in a straight line and fell between the tables, distracting the others. John moved to help.
“There was so much blood.” Her eyes held a haunted look. She cried softly. “Somuch blood. It was everywhere. All over the place. And then Jala had a vision.” More tears fell. “There was no point in resisting her visions. You did what she saw or else it would happen the hard way but still end up the same.” She cried harder. “We framed the neighbor. He would’ve gone to jail anyway. He had a warrant, I guess. We lived in a really bad place. We framed him to get us off.Meoff. And then Sabby and Jala essentially hid in my house until we could steal enough to all run away. And that’s what my life has become.” Her cheeks glistened. “Killing and killing. Torturing. Stealing. Killing some more. And it’s all my fault. It all started with me.” She hiccupped. “Whatever I might say, I have no one else to blame b-but myself.”
John passed by again, but he didn’t take his seat. He faced the rest of the bar, his back to Tristan and Natasha, giving them a moment.
“You did what you had to do to save your family,” he said gently, his heart aching for her. He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “You’re doing that still. We all are.Ihave so much darkness within me, little angel, it would make you weep. It would scare you. You wouldn’t want to share a bed with me or even stand this close. I have traveled the darkest parts of a world that isn’t supposed to merge with this one. A plane of existence so vile, it is a wonder I didn’t come out coated in evil. Or maybe I did.”
“Tell me,” she whispered, pleading. Wanting her own demons to get out of the way or maybe just have company.
He glanced at the bar where Niamh was sitting. “Another time. But I will, I promise, okay? I will trust you where I haven’ttrusted anyone else. Not now. Not when it could be used against me, or when you might not remember it anyway.”
He wiped away the wetness on her cheeks.
“But you are wrong about one thing, Natasha,” he said. “Youdidhave a choice, back in the day. And you have a choice now. You have always had a choice. And you chose, and choose, to be a hero. You choose to do the dirty work and save the lives of the people you love. Not everyone has that ability. Not everyone has the courage.
“The point is, Natasha, the darkness doesn’t define us. It doesn’t erase the good parts of us. We are the best heroes, you and I, because we don’t need to walk in the light to enact justice. We do it through any means possible. Jessie needs people like us. Like Niamh. Like Austin. She needs people who aren’t afraid of the night. Who else will battle the creatures that exist there, but us?”
He ran his thumb along her jaw, and in a moment of absolute weakness, said words he’d never uttered to another living soul.
“I love you,” he whispered, and realized with a jolt that they were true. Almost immediately, he wanted to take them back. To hide the truth. But they were out in the world, now. They no longer belonged to just him. Now they belonged to her as well.
